Kayaking is a Great sport, from surfing a wave in the middle of down town, to multi day trips, from flat water to class V rapids, from summer to winter, it is a great sport for beginners and for experts with a nice smoth and fast learning curve
I started kayaking in spring 2002 with my wonderfull Girlfriend Jaime.
If you are interested in kayaking, the first thing that you need to do is learn how ro roll. As you know, on a kayak, you are on a small unstable boat and if you flip over (upside down, face in the watter), you need to be able to get yourself back up (else, you can wet exit and get out of your boat. However, this is much more of a pain than flipping back up as you will have to swim, dragging your boat all the way to the side, and then empty it. In addition, in a rapid, this can be dangerous).
Find a pool next to you where you can practice with an instructor or kayaking friends...
once you know how to roll, get someone to take you on an easy stretch of the river and start enjoying (and flipping, and swimming!). Once you have gained confidence in your roll and gained stability, learn how to eddy out, eddy cross and brace and go up one level!
I started on the lower main of the Idaho Payette river, swam a couple of times and then graduated to the main, a good class III river (clasification goes from I to V). After some month there, I ended up on the South fork of the payette (class IV) with Jaime and had a ball (Jaime had more problems). We kept running the SF far into fall and at low flow. This was great to learn the rapids
Note: Complete description of the runs of the payette river
This year we started on the main again, and then moved back on the SF. This was quite scarry because the flow was high (10000cfs+)! but we managed. We then moved to the kanyon, a beautiful section of the river! before fall started. Since then, I have not been doing much except for 1 run of the lower five miles of the North fork (class V) at extremly low flow.
As I said at the top, there is lots of things to do with a kayak.
We are lucky, downtown boise to have a river with a little low dam, this creates a little wave that we can surf. surfing on a kayak is realy fun as you just stay in place (or try to) and make figures. It is also good because you can literlally drive to the wave, jump in your kayak, have fun for 30 minutes, get out and be back home in less than 1 hour! great nerve breaker!
Here are a couple of picture of us Surfing, Hand surfing, goofing of on the wave, back surfing and socializing while taking a break.
some of the things that can be done on a wave include: Surfing, back surfing (surfing the other way around), rotation (360°) are when you turn your boat on the wave, not that easy, enders (this is when you burry the front or back of your boat in the watter and then get projected away from the wave by the boyency), pirouettes (this is a rotation, but vertical. You burry the front of your boat, but then, you turn and bury the back, and then the front, staying in the wave. This is much more dificult), hand surfing (no paddle)...
We also go the the fish lader, this is another wave, further away from downtown). This is another wave, but much bigger. If you look closely, you will see that there is a kayak in all of these pictures!
But we obviously mainly go down the river and the rapids on the river. Unfortunately, I have no picture there because I will not risk my camera in the watter! you can however consult my Payette river guide that will give you an idea of what we are running!